Thread

1. miguel-muniz · 1790869419 · focus · HN ↗

   For context: Figma has two MCPs. The local "dev" MCP that works through the Desktop app, and the remote MCP that requires a connection to Figma. Companies need to be whitelisted to use the remote MCP, which is the only one that allows agents edit access to Figma documents.

   I only found out about Figma's limitation when I was trying to add the remote MCP server to GitHub Copilot Desktop and kept running into errors. Turns out they whitelisted GitHub Copilot CLI but not the Desktop app and had put a pause on enabling any more vendors. Eventually someone (not sure which side) got it working.

   Kind of strange to limit edit access only to the Remote MCP when their competitors like Pen[1] and Paper[2] allow any local agent to edit.

   [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pen.dev&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pen.dev&#x2F;

   [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paper.design&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paper.design&#x2F;

   1. miguel-muniz · 1790872749 · focus · HN ↗

      To speak more broadly, Figma is in a really tough spot right now. I see more and more designers in my circle saying they are skipping design tools entirely to prototype in code or ship directly in their product&#x27;s code base. Honestly I find myself doing the same.

      Figma&#x27;s main value used to be in providing designers a canvas to iterate and explore ideas since the majority of designers did not code, but AI has completely changed that.

      I fear Figma&#x27;s reluctance to integrate with all the popular AI tools might actually accelerate their decline. AI provides so much value, that I would rather base my software purchasing decisions around what is compatible with my AI of choice rather than pick an AI that is compatible with Figma.

      1. jeffybefffy519 · 1790887203 · focus · HN ↗

         I always thought it was weird that Figma didnt close the gap of taking a design and implementing it in code, that seems like what AI could enable too...

         1. 14u2c · 1790888155 · focus · HN ↗

            They tried. Figma Make was at least useful for the free tokens.
         2. miguel-muniz · 1790889095 · focus · HN ↗

            Figma exists as an abstraction of code, which has always made it kind of difficult for them to implement code. For example, they have css snippets in dev mode when you have a frame selected, but those aren&#x27;t really that useful since it doesn&#x27;t know anything about your existing code base or frameworks.

            Code connect was supposed to bridge this gap, allowing users to define how Figma components should generate relevant code snippets, but it only worked with React and they had some janky string based templating language for everything else. And of course, it meant someone would have to go through the effort of creating mappings for every component in your system. It&#x27;s like writing a component twice, the same pitfall we were trying to avoid in the first place.

            Now people will just ask their AI to pull the frames from Figma through the remote MCP and have the AI implement it that way. But to that end, why not just have designers make a branch in the codebase and have them implement the UI? This is the question many of us have been asking ourselves lately.

            They continue to iterate though. They&#x27;ve introduced Code Layers so real codebases can render on the canvas, but in infamous Figma fashion it only works with a limited set of React codebases. Figma Make (their Lovable, Bolt.new, Claude Design like product) can also pull in existing codebases, but again it is very limited in the types of code bases it can work on.

            These limitations are all so exhuasting. It&#x27;s just so much easier to use Claude Code or Codex to do what I need. At this point Figma is more of a secondary tool for when I need to document a prototype or want a canvas for exploration purposes.

            1. jeffybefffy519 · 1790892424 · focus · HN ↗

               The smartest thing they could have done is a platform play which is to try make their own React that was Figma native. A hard thing to do, but certainly doable if you consider where React is now...

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